


The Building of Cair Paravel

by Adaese



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 19:01:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7857367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaese/pseuds/Adaese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Frank and Queen Helen can manage with what they have, but a little extra help would still be welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Building of Cair Paravel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Some say that King Frank and Queen Helen brought nothing with them from the world of Men; that all they wrought, and all they built, was the fruit of their own labours or the gift of Aslan. But that is not quite true, for did not Queen Helen bring with her soapsuds? Those very same soapsuds, from which sprang the soap-bush, the juice of whose fruit we use for all our cleaning to this day? And in like manner, it is said, King Frank brought with him a gift as great, and as little considered when it was but a seed.

**********

Lantern Waste, the first year of the reign of King Frank.

By the end of the second week, the field of oats that King Frank had planted in the first week was ready to harvest. 

All being safely gathered in (they used one of the nearby caves as a makeshift barn), and a second crop planted (and growing noticeably more slowly; the echoes of the Song were beginning to die down), Helen suggested that maybe now was the time to explore their new country.

"We've a rough idea of how the land lies from Fledge and the Ravens", she said, "but we really should see more of it for ourselves. It'll be a couple of weeks, maybe more, till the next harvest."

"Anywhere special in mind, love?"

"Maybe we could take a few days to walk down the river? I've a mind to see the sea again".

They had, a year before and a world away, managed a brief trip to the coast for their honeymoon. Neither had ever had a proper holiday before that.

So they reminded the Rabbits and Deer not to eat the new crop ("It's for those of us who can't eat grass, and for times of hardship when there is no grass! Not for over-indulging when there's plenty!"), packed a few oat-cakes and a couple of fruits from the soapsud bush ("No reason not to be civilized", said King Frank. "Cleanliness is next to godliness, as they say"), and the next morning they set out.

**********

Sussex, July 1899

"What you found there, Nellie love?"

A rough shingle beach gave way to sand further out. The ruins of a castle stood proud above the cliff; one corner, right on the edge, had given way revealing the roofless shell of a tower. Nell stood with a small fragment of brick-red stone in her hand.

"It's not the same colour as the other stones. Think it could be from the castle? A tile, or summat like that?"

"Mebbe - but it's just as like to be a piece of old flower-pot. All kinds o' stuff must git washed up 'ere. Why, you look quite crest-fallen, love! All right, it's a tile, and grand lords an' ladies danced on it - just like we're going to dance right here, to the song of the skylarks? Mebbe?"

They danced, and ate cherries, and walked back to town and ate more cherries, and then (to remind them, he said) Frank bought Nell an enormous hat, the latest fashion, with artificial cherries on the brim. Nell thought no more about the little stone. But Frank kept it, and all through the long, dreary winter that followed he turned it over in his pocket, and remembered that little Sussex town and the castle on the cliff, and their dance on the beach.

**********

The mouth of the Great River, the first year of the reign of King Frank.

"What've you found there, Frank, love?"

"Not summat new, but summat you found. Remember that piece of tile on the beach last summer?"

They had reached the coast. The river widened to a fine estuary; the last of a long line of hills jutted out to sea, joined to the land by a low, narrow isthmus. They sat on the top of that last hill, with nothing but sea beyond and around them, river and coast and hills behind.

"I'm thinking. Those soapsuds you shed when you first came here, all dripping wet from the laundry - they turned into the soapsud bush."

"And very handy it's been too. How we'd have kept ourselves clean without the soap-fruits I don't know."

"And the children said they grew toffees."

"Summat like, at least."

"So if I plant this bit of tile - what I'm thinking is will it grow more tiles, or summat sturdy we could use for tiling?"

"We can try, when we get home, I suppose. If the Song hasn't faded too much. You thinking we should build proper, like?"

"I'm thinking - I'm thinking this might be a good place to call home some day. By the Tree is safe - while the Tree lasts, at least - and things grow well there - and will do - but it'll be awful cold come winter, and it won't be so strong a place when the Tree is gone, nor against any danger other than that there witch. This place looks strong, and there'll be fish, and stones for walls, and we can raise crops just as well."

"And it's as pretty as a picture, and reminds you of Arden".

"Well. That too."

"Then plant our tile here, and plant it with my good will, and may the Lion bless it".

But the next morning there was no tile-bush plant to be seen, nothing but the small bare patch of earth where King Frank had planted the tile. So they went home, back to planting their small fields and living in their little cave, and made no more plans for a stone-walled house with tiles.

**********

And yet the echoes of the Song of Creation still lingered, and the River-god and the Wood-people and the Mer-folk saw what the King had done. And they sang also, in harmony with the Song, a song of strength, and growth, and fruitfulness. The little piece of tile, brought all the way from the World of Men, stirred in its little patch of soil. And when still nothing grew, the Wood-people called on Pomona, and she sang to it, and it grew, and became a fine, whole tile, and then a ring of tiles around a well. Vesta came and sang also, and around the well grew a courtyard, and a house of stone with tiles around the hearth. Last they were joined by Minerva, and the song swelled, and walls grew, and proud above the sea stood a castle, a great castle of stone, with tiles on the floor, and tiles on the walls, and roof-tiles shining in the sun. When Autumn came, the castle was finished. And word came to King Frank, where he was bringing the last harvest of the summer in. Moving the stores was the greatest task he had yet undertaken, but move the stores he did, and all the people of Narnia gathered in their new castle, and Frank sang to them the First Song, the Song of Harvest Home, in his Great Hall of Cair Paravel.

**Author's Note:**

> For more on the history of Arden Castle, the interested traveller is referred to the excellent series of guide-books by E Nesbit.


End file.
